OPERA INDEX GALA

Gloria Kim, Joshua Sanders, Leah Brzyski, Teresa Castillo, Brian Michael Moore,
Xiaomeng Zhang, Aaron Crouch, Meigui Zhang, Yunuet Laguna, and Jane Shaulis

Last night at the glamorous Metropolitan Club, Opera Index held their annual Distinguished Achievement Award Dinner, honoring Joyce DiDonato and Elinor Ross. President Jane Shaulis gave a warm welcome to attendees. As we looked around the room it seemed like every citizen of Planet Opera was there to celebrate the honorees and to hear some extraordinary entertainment by a group of 2019 Award Winners.

Unfortunately, legendary soprano Elinor Ross was unable to attend but a selection from her debut at The Metropolitan Opera as Turandot was played. The recording was made a half century ago! We will be overjoyed to hear all of the young artists we heard last night making debuts at The Met!

Tenor Joshua Sanders led the entertainment with a stunning performance of "Ah! mes amis" from Donizetti's La fille du régiment. Nailing all the high C's was not enough for Mr. Sanders who engaged the audience by circulating between the tables. Ain't nobody don't love that aria!

Actually, all of the choices for the evening's entertainment were arias that are familiar and popular. We Strauss lovers were thrilled to hear "The Presentation of the Rose" from Der Rosenkavalier and our table agreed that Leah Brzyski made a perfect innocent Sophie.

"O zittre nicht" from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte is another crowd pleaser due to its vocal acrobatics and soprano Teresa Castillo did not disappoint, giving us plenty of vocal fireworks with all the accompanying thrills and chills.

We never miss a chance to hear baritone Xiaomeng Zhang perform "Vy mne pisali" from Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, which absolutely must be his signature piece, sung with terrific tonal quality and just the right touch of hauteur. We simply cannot wait to hear Mr. Zhang perform the title role in the entire opera, a role which seems made for him.

Tenor Brian Michael Moore tackled "Ah! la paterna mano" from Verdi's Macbeth, nailing the notes as well as MacDuff's deep grief over the loss of his family. A highly moving performance indeed.

Lest one think that there is not much of interest beyond the famous male duet in Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de perles, we wish you had heard soprano Meigui Zhang sing "Comme autrefois" in which Leila reminisces about her past in the loveliest French sung on the loveliest melody. We particularly admired the note spun out like a silken thread.

Men giving away their hearts is a topic dear to our heart and tenor Aaron Crouch performed "Dein ist mein ganzes Herz" from Franz Lehar's Das Land des Lächelns. Yes, it is a silly operetta but this hit tune has provided ample material for an expansive tenor with good German.

The entertainment ended with the beloved "Song to the Moon" from Dvorak's Rusalka movingly performed by sensational soprano Yunuet Laguna, who made this difficult language sound as musical as Italian. We actually saw the moon in our mind's eye, so convincing was the performance.

Piano accompaniment was provided by Gloria Kim who can play just about anything!

Richard Stilwell gave a lovely tribute to honoree Joyce DiDonato who always has something sincere to say about young artists. We have often attended her master classes and find her tutelage to be original and very much custom tailored to each student. She certainly deserves to be honored, not just at a gala but constantly. This is such a prominent and admirable feature among the opera community--always helping the younger generation along.

© meche kroop

ABDUCTED!

Edwin Davis, Brian Michael Moore, Janet Todd, Sarah Mikulski, and Matthew Hernandez

How lucky are we to hear TWO Mozart singspiels on two successive nights.! Our head is just bursting with gorgeous melodies. The youthful Mozart composed Die Entführung aus dem Serail in 1782 when the Ottoman Empire was a source of great interest to the Austrian people and the singspiel was an immediate success.

Last night,  Maestro Thomas Muraco led his Opera Repertoire Ensemble through this charming piece at Manhattan School of Music. He certainly does know his singers; he knew he had the right cast to tackle this comedy which contains two of the most challenging arias in the repertoire.

All of the singing was fine but two performances stood out for their vocal and dramatic excellence. Soprano Janet Todd portrayed Konstanze, an elite Spanish woman who was purchased by Pasha Selim from pirates and installed in his harem. He has not abused her but has been trying to win her love. Everything about Ms. Todd's performance was spot on. Her attack of the elaborate fioritura was sharp as could be but the melting lyricism of the expressive vocal line left nothing to be desired. Although the role is unidimensional, she created a warm character, loyal to her fiancé Belmonte. We held our breath throughout "Martern aller Arten", astonished at her facility.

Bass Edwin Davis impressed us with his portrayal of the comically nasty Osmin, servant to the Pasha. He so immersed himself in the role that it never seemed like acting. It would have been a mesmerizing performance if he had never sung a note; but his booming room-filling voice was marvelously employed to serve the role.  The difficult third act aria "Ha, wie will ich triumphieren" contains some of the lowest notes in the bass repertory and he nailed them.

His duet with Blonde, Konstanze's English maid who was also purchased by the Pasha, was pure delight. It's a bit unusual for both female roles to be written for the same fach; soprano Sarah Mikulski made a most effective Blonde both dramatically and vocally; we enjoyed her sparring with Osmin whom she is rejecting just as successfully as her mistress is rejecting Selim.

Not only are both female characters sopranos but both male characters are tenors. Brian Michael Moore took the role of Belmonte, Kostanze's fiancé who has come to rescue her; Matthew Hernandez performed the role of Belmonte's servant Pedrillo.  What a pleasure to hear healthy young voices sing with clarity. Mr. Moore might improve his performance by not putting so much volume in his upper register.

Pasha Selim, a non-singing role, was performed by Paul Goodwin-Groen who might have better spoken his narration without amplification. At times the microphone was too close or too far from his mouth, leading to drastic changes of volume.

Maestro Muraco and his talented musicians reduced the score for two pianos (Jeremy Chan and Jonathan Heaney) and percussion (Stefano Baldasseroni and Jia Jun Hong). The percussion comprised a bass drum, cymbals, and a triangle in order to reproduce the sounds of a Turkish marching band.

We loved the the overture with its A-B-A-B form. We loved the duet between Osmin and Blonde, which included a lot of feminine retaliation with a broom. We enjoyed  Pedrillo's serenade in Act III and the love duet between Kostanze and Belmonte in which each got to sing the melody while the other held the same note constant. We loved the quartet of reconciliation when the two pairs of lovers forgive each other. We just then realized that all of Mozart's comedies seem to have two pairs of lovers.

We must also put in a good word for the chorus who seemed very well rehearsed.

The set was minimal--just a trio of screens to suggest "the Orient".

Costumes were streetwear for the Europeans and an appropriate turban and vest for Osmin.

There will be another performance tonight. Take advantage! Although the plot is simple, the music is marvelous.

(c) meche kroop

CAN'T BEAT THIS TOM-TOM

Thomas Muraco and cast of La Bohème at Manhattan School of Music

Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème is arguably the favorite opera of many; however, some opera lovers of our acquaintance refuse to see it unless there is a notable debut in one of the roles at The Metropolitan Opera.  Indeed, the Zeffirelli production is spectacular and astonishingly realistic and also tends to overwhelm the story and the singers.  Not so the production we enjoyed last night at the Manhattan School of Music.

Conductor Thomas Muraco guided his Opera Repertoire Ensemble through an intimate and involving production; he clearly loves this music and his young artists, most of whom are graduate students working on their Master's Degree.  If great sums of money were not lavished on the production, compensation was in the form of attention to detail and the achievement of intimacy.  The emotional intensity built slowly from the first act--all horseplay and romance--to the last, which left us in tears.  Such involvement is worth more than fancy sets.  What more do we want from opera than to be transported to another century, another country, another life?

In this case, we are in late 19th c. Paris in the world of starving artists and the women who love them.  Tuberculosis is running rampant and would claim the life of Mimi by the final act, forever altering the lives of these carefree young people. We are made to think of the late AIDS crisis which claimed so many young lives.

The orchestra was supplanted by two pianos, four hands, belonging to Jeremy Chan and Dura Jun with Yeon Hwa Chung's harp making significant contributions.  Mr. Muraco himself did the orchestration and we were able to hear strands of melody and motives that have gone unnoticed when hearing a full orchestra.  

The singing and acting were equally impressive.  No director was credited and we were given to understand that the young artists came up with the stage business themselves.  Perhaps that was why we found the storytelling to be so effective.  Who knows youth better than the young?  Witness the horseplay in Act I and Act IV.

In Bryn Holdsworth we met a slightly different Mimi--not quite as innocent as other Mimi's we have seen.  She used her lovely expressive soprano and her highly expressive face and gesture to show us a young woman a bit desperate for her next meal, a bit sly in her seductiveness, a bit manipulative--but also capable of deep love for Rodolfo.  It was a stellar performance, given her fine phrasing and just right vibrato. We couldn't take our eyes off her as she eavesdropped on the duet between Rodolfo and Marcello in Act III as she= is being confronted with the loss of her own life.

Brian Michael Moore made an ardent Rodolfo and his inability to accept Mimi's death at the end arose from a deep understanding of the character. He knows she is dying by Act III but he doesn't really let it register. He is living in denial. His fine tenor faltered a bit in Act I, probably a consequence of pushing for volume at the top of his register, but he settled in nicely for the rest of the performance.

Young Kwang Yoo's pleasing baritone was just right for the lovesick Marcello. He's the one the two lovers consult (separately) when their romance is in trouble; he reacts just the way a young man would.  And then, just as a young man would, he behaves in a manner contradictory to his advice. His duet with Mimi was just gorgeous.

As Musetta, his love interest, soprano Yun Melody Xie played the part to the hilt, much to the audience's delight.  Her bright instrument and expressive body conveyed everything we needed to know about this survivor who uses every tool at her disposal to get by.  Her Act II aria "Quando me'n vo" was spectacular and so was her red gown.  We loved the way she tormented her elderly date Alcindoro (Stefano de Peppo) who also played the part of Benoit the landlord in Act I.  What a handful!!!

The delights of Act I involved not only Rodolfo and Marcello but also Colline the philosopher and Schaunard the musician.  Schaunard (excellent baritone Juan Daniel Melo) tells his hilarious tale of poisoning the parrot and the three "bohemians" sit around the table devouring the provisions he has supplied owing to his latest job.  His fine baritone went unnoticed by his flatmates but not by us.

Joshua Arky used his bass voice well in his portrayal of Colline.  The horseplay from Act I has been recapitulated in Act IV but the tone is rapidly changed when the dying Mimi is carried upstairs.  Everyone is sacrificing something and he is pawning his "Vecchia zimarra". Clearly, he is saying goodbye to his innocent youth, not just his old overcoat.

Similarly when Musetta is praying for Mimi, her candle goes out just about the time Mimi expires.  Witnessing the story in a small space, up close and personal, provides many such precious moments that we will recall the next time we see the opera. Unlike some of our friends, we hope that won't be too far in the future and we won't need to wait for a big debut at the Met.

DON GIOVANNI AS POLITICIAN

The cast of Don Giovanni--New York Opera Exchange

In New York Opera Exchange's radical new production of Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, the eponymous "hero" is reimagined as a politician in l963.  His sense of entitlement is the same as it was centuries earlier and the media have not yet taken control of the daily dissemination of political scandals.  Men of power take what they want just because they can.

How successful is Director Jennifer Shorstein's concept?  Measured by the rapt attention of the audience, which comprised mainly 20-somethings, the production is a roaring success.  We did not observe the texting that takes place regularly at The Metropolitan Opera; cell phones were whipped out only during intermission.  We wondered whether it was the immediacy of the performance, the intimacy of the space or the youth of the artists.  Surely, few members of the audience had been born a half century ago and yet they seemed to relate.

Still, there are a few wrinkles that might bother a veteran opera goer who has seen Don G. more times than there are women he has seduced.  When a story is updated, there are generally conflicts between the libretto (Da Ponte's) and what happens onstage.  Supertitles (credited to Danielle Bendjy) dealt with the discrepancy by substituting the words that described what was happening onstage, i.e. "cavalieri" became "politician".  Audience members who understand Italian may be thrown off by this strategy but we doubt whether anyone cared.  People died, whether by sword or pistol.

We further doubt that anyone noticed a missing aria or the missing onstage ensemble in the ballroom scene.  Nor did anyone get the joke during the penultimate scene when Don G. is listening to arias from Nozze di Figaro.  None of this matters.  What counts is that young people were enjoying themselves and new opera lovers were being born.  We were overjoyed to see this.

Also adding to our pleasure is the knowledge that emerging artists are given an opportunity to add roles to their resumés as well as the opportunity to perform with full orchestra, just as Mozart wrote it, only with keyboards substituting for harpsichord continuo.  Maestro David Leibowitz conducted the New York Opera Exchange Orchestra, the only community orchestra focused solely on operatic repertoire.  We feel quite confident that as the relationship progresses, problems of balance between sections of the orchestra and between orchestra and singers will be on the upswing.

And what about those singers!  The three women had very different types of soprano voices, a real benefit in a vocal world where so many sound alike.  Kaley Lynn Söderquist was an excellent Donna Anna and was particularly lovely in "Non mi dir", with fine phrasing, evenness throughout her range and easily understood Italian.  Rebecca Shorstein has a darker soprano and threw herself into the role of the desperate Donna Elvira with gusto and a fine vibrato; we liked her "Mi tradì", although in Act I she was occasionally overwhelmed by the orchestra, as was Sydnee Waggoner as Zerlina, whose bright clear soprano sailed over the orchestra in the upper register but got lost in the middle register.

Nicholas A. Wiggins made an excellent Don G. both dramatically and vocally.  Likewise Andrew Hiers was a fine Leporello and Jacob S. Louchheim was an appealing Masetto.  Paul Khuri Yakub played the Commendatore with a sense of menace appropriate to a Mafia don (yes, that was in the synopsis) but was drowned out by the brass chorale in the final scene. Brian Michael Moore's sweet tenor was perfect for Don Ottavio and he gave a lovely rendering of "Il mio tesoro" such that we were sorry that "Dalla sua pace" had been cut.  Isn't it usually the other way round?

Sets were basic and costumes by Fabiana Pires Moore seemed appropriate to the early 60's.  Zerlina was payed as a "hippie chick" and looked perfect but Donna Elvira's costuming was unfortunate, especially when the libretto calls for her being described as noble and majestic.

There are several more performances until Sunday and you will surely have a good time if you go.  And just wait until you see what is in store for next season.  GO, NYOE!

© meche kroop